


The Sparing of Isaac

by GiganticBearLemonade14



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Discussions of Good and Evil, Episode: s01e03 Hard Times, The Sacrifice of Isaac, but not too heavy, kinda heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 00:29:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiganticBearLemonade14/pseuds/GiganticBearLemonade14
Summary: Some time after the flood, an angel was sent to deliver a message to a man, telling him to take his son up to the mountains and kill him.Had the angel not first procrastinated in the same inn where a particular demon happened to be spending the evening, that might very well have been what happened.But Aziraphale did.





	The Sparing of Isaac

**Author's Note:**

> Just to let everyone know that this is intended as a work of pure fiction and is not religiously or historically accurate. It was just a random idea that popped into my head at some point, because I adore fics that have Crowley interacting with kids.
> 
> Sightly edited 13.09.19.

Crowley had known something was up with Aziraphale straightaway. The principality (formerly of the eastern gate, having left Eden some time ago) had been sitting and staring at a plate of bread and meats in front of him for nearly half an hour, whilst making no move to eat it.

Food was something the humans were very grateful for and it took up a great deal of their time, so whenever one offered him some, Aziraphale, despite not needing to, made a point of eating it and then thanking the provider. It was only right, he said, to honour what someone has given freely despite having so little themselves.

Aziraphale in this instance didn’t even seem to notice the offered food; nor did he seem to notice Crowley as he rose, cup in hand, and slipped through the room towards him; nor the many humans crowding the inn and filling it with noise, effectively ensuring their privacy.

“Angel,” the demon said as a greeting, sliding into the chair opposite him.

Aziraphale jumped, fingers nudging the plate and making it rattle against the table, before he realised who it was. “Crawley.” he said in greeting.

Crowley didn’t correct him; he had been playing around with changing his name for a while now and still had yet to decide whether he was Crowley, pronounced with an ‘ow’ like in the word ‘crown,’ or Crowley, as in the bird, the crow.

“What are you doing here?” the angel said, attempting a polite almost-smile and succeeding only in a pained not-quite-a-grimace.

“Tempting, tricking, stirring up disorder and trouble and other demonic pursuits.” said Crowley, and then cut right to the chase. “What are you doing here looking so miserable, angel?”

Aziraphale looked at him for a moment, his weak facade of ease still in place; then all the tension seemed to leak out of him and he drooped in his chair. Crowley could have sworn he dimmed a little, like a candle on its last legs. Aziraphale dropped his eyes back down to his plate, his finger tapping against the edge in a nervous tic. Then he sighed and leaned back from the table, pushing the plate of uneaten food away.

Crowley felt mildly astonished. Wow. Something must be really bothering him, if Aziraphale was outright rejecting a meal.

“I was sent to deliver a message to a man named Abraham.” Aziraphale began.

Crowley nodded. “Ah, yeah. Heard of him. Doing marvellous things for your side, isn’t he, since the flood?”

Indeed he was. That was why Crowley was here in the first place, on instruction from Beelzebub via Dagon to tempt the man to evil. The Lord of the Files had even said that he had their lord’s permission to do it in any way he wanted, provided he got the job done - something they had never done before. Presumably, downstairs were getting a bit desperate. But what was bad for them was good for Crowley and bumping into the angel on the way, apparently on a similar mission from heaven, had only improved his mood.

But the same could not be said for Aziraphale, it seemed.

“Yes, well…” Aziraphale fidgeted with the edge of the table.

“Can’t say the same for that wife of his.” Crowley muttered darkly. “Spiteful old bitch, she is.”

“Did you know they have a son?” Aziraphale asked, not seeming to have caught that last bit. Which was also quite odd for the angel; usually if Crowley insulted someone in his presence, Aziraphale would immediately chide him for doing so, though he would always follow it up with a remark that implied that he privately thought Crowley had a point.

“I thought he already had a son.” said Crowley.

“No, this one belongs to both of them. She blessed them with a child some years ago.”

“Mm,” said Crowley. Because Aziraphale seemed to be trying to lead up to something, he asked, “What’s his name?”

“Isaac.” Aziraphale said.

“So what? She’s got a message for the son?”

“No, it was a message for Abraham.” said Aziraphale. “She wished me to tell Abraham -” he swallowed “- to take Isaac up to the mountains of Moriah tomorrow. And make an offering to Her.”

“An offering.” Crowley repeated. “To Her.” The pieces began to connect in his head. “Angel,” he said slowly, putting his cup down on the table. “You’re not going to tell this man to kill his son, are you?”

Aziraphale looked all around the inn, at the walls, the ceiling, the people; anywhere but Crowley.

Crowley gaped at him. “And She actually wants him to do it?”

Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I…don’t believe that is what She intends, exactly.”

No wonder Aziraphale was so upset. This was the angel who’d risked the wrath of the Almighty to sneak the disgraced First Man and Woman his flaming sword so they’d be warm and safe at night - the angel who quite soon, maybe even this very night, was going to have to go and tell a father to kill his own offspring. And possibly watch it happen.

“Isn’t murder a terrible sin?” Crowley asked, feeling an incredulous kind of desire to laugh, though it really wasn’t funny. “Or is She going to do that part Herself?”

“No, I -” Aziraphale shook his head. “Upstairs believe it is a test of Abraham’s faith; to see whether he truly loves and trusts the word of the Almighty as he says he does, or whether he loves himself and his family more.”

“It’s his kid, though, Angel.” said Crowley. All dark humour suddenly left his face. “Is it a kid?”

“I wouldn’t think so.” said Aziraphale, shaking his head as if to shake the thought out of his mind. Crowley could see the angel was really rattled, barely paying attention to his surroundings. “She never said that She would kill the son.” the angel said.

“She never said She wouldn’t.” said Crowley.

“But I cannot believe the Almighty would…would _order_ a child’s death.” Aziraphale continued fitfully, not hearing him. “I cannot believe She would be needlessly cruel…” He sighed, looked up and met Crowley’s eyes clearly for the first time. “The archangels are confident it is simply a test; they are sure that if Abraham is genuine, Isaac will be unharmed.” He lowered his gaze ashamedly back to the table and confessed, “But I am not sure.”

A moment passed. In the middle of the noisy inn, angel and demon sat in a bubble of quiet, each lost in their thoughts. Aziraphale was staring into the tabletop, drawing meaningless patterns on the wood. Crowley watched him, thinking that the angel must have been in great distress to admit out loud that he was having doubts about Her will. He had seen Aziraphale upset before, during the Flood. The demon left the inn for a moment, lost in memories of damp, bedraggled little hands and faces, shaking with cold and shock as they huddled behind him, clinging to each other, crying for their parents.

“When?” he asked.

“Tonight.” Aziraphale said “Tomorrow. They will need to wait until tomorrow before they can set out to the mountains at any rate. There is no point in stalling for much longer.” He pulled himself jerkily to his feet. He smiled but Crowley could see it was an effort. “Good evening, Crawley.” the angel said and Crowley watched him weave his way through the press of bodies, the tension in his shoulders noticeable even from a distance.

He was back within just a few hours, before night had turned to morning.

“What did the father say?” Crowley asked, as the angel retook his seat, having been waiting by some unspoken agreement for Aziraphale to come back and tell him how the message had gone down.

Aziraphale was still off his food. “He… did not say anything.”

“Think he’ll do it?” Truthfully, Crowley didn’t think the man would, however god-fearing he was. Perhaps Abraham wouldn’t outright refuse but he might plead for some kind of alternative. And She might be merciful; after all, according to Aziraphale, She had never said that she was going to _kill_ Abraham’s son. Perhaps She simply meant to steer Isaac down the same path of righteousness as his father by having him be present for the offering. Or perhaps, after the ugly business involving Sodom and Gomorrah, She wanted to put Abraham to the test, make sure he wasn’t having any private second thoughts.

Really, even after the Flood, Crowley agreed with Aziraphale; it was hard to believe that She would explicitly order someone’s death.

“Of course he will.” Aziraphale said “It is Her will. How could he refuse?”

Then he ordered a jug of the strongest stuff they had behind the bar and drank like he hadn’t done it for years.

Crowley had been doing a lot of thinking while Aziraphale had been gone. Now as the angel drank himself into - well, not a stupor (it was certainly enough to put any man or woman into a stupor though; it took a lot to get an angel drunk) - as the angel drank, Crowley did some more thinking as he stared into his cup of miracled red wine. He thought about the mission he’d been sent on, and how Dagon had said he had permission to do it however he wished, as long as he got the job done. He also thought back to how he had justified himself to the angel the last time (“Evil, angel. Foiling God’s plans. After all, She wants all of these little sinners dead. What could be worse than me keeping a few of them alive?”). And he remembered Aziraphale saying that Abraham probably wouldn’t head out to the Moriah Mountains until morning.

At sunrise he left the inn with a quick goodbye to Aziraphale; “Got to go and sow a few poisoned oats, angel, you know how it is.”

The morning saw Crowley from high up on one of the peaks of the Mountains of Moriah, watching as two figures, one tall and one small, came up the mountain path, the taller leading the smaller by the hand.

The man was obviously Abraham, and he carried a knife and a flint in his belt, and a pile of wood in a harness on his back. The child at his side was obviously Isaac. He also carried a pile of wood on his back.

Crowley watched the little boy, puffing under the weight of the wood, yet eager to keep up with his father. At first he chattered and peppered his father with questions as they walked, but the man replied in monosyllables and wore an expression so grim that the boy soon quietened and kept his eyes on his path, glancing up every now and then with an expression like he was unsure if he was in trouble or not.

Neither of them looked up towards Crowley’s perch; and even if they had, Crowley had made sure they wouldn’t see him.

The demon watched as father and son hiked on, until they came to a flat shelf of land with little grass, set midway up the mountain between a steep wall of rock and a dizzying drop.

Abraham took off his harness and then his son’s, and tipped all the wood in a big pile onto the rocky outcrop. He set down his flint and his knife and selected the biggest and thickest piece of wood from the pile; then he pulled out a length of rope and went over to Isaac.

Isaac looked at the rope and then up at his father without a hint of mistrust. “What’s that for, Father?” he asked innocently, too young to think he was ever anything but safe with his father.

Abraham did not answer his question. “Stay still,” he instructed, and bound the block of wood to his son’s back, crossing it over and under his shoulders so that his arms and legs were free.

Isaac shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. “It’s heavy, Father.” he protested.

“Then sit and rest.” said Abraham tersely, and turned away quickly before his son could see the tears in his eyes.

Unaware of his father’s distress, Isaac petulantly stomped over to the nearest rock to sit down, stumbling a little over the uneven ground from the additional weight on his back. He clearly thought that his father was treating him very unjustly, but he was tired from the journey up the mountain and happy to relieve the weight of the block of wood that was almost as big as he was. Crowley could see that he would not be able to run or walk very far with the piece of wood on his back. He watched as Abraham arranged the wood into a pyre. Then he took his son’s hand and tried to lead him onto it.

Isaac had been sullenly sitting and watching his father, but up until that moment he had seemed perfectly at ease. Now, he became nervous. He shook his head and pulled against his father’s hand. The father insisted, tightening his grip and repeating with increasing agitation for his son to go to the pile. His composure began to crack. Frightened, Isaac tried to pull away; but the weighty block of wood his father had tied him to for this exact purpose tripped him up on the rocky ground and his father did not even have to run to catch him.

Still, the boy tried to fight. He fought like a little animal that had only just realised it was being herded into a cage, but he was still a child and his father was much bigger and stronger than he was. Even when Abraham managed to bind his arms and legs, Isaac didn’t stop struggling. And he screamed. He screamed and screamed until, finally exhausted, he stopped and lay on the pyre, moaning, crying, pleading with his father.

His father did not reply. Still, Crowley didn’t think he would actually do it; not until he picked up the knife.

Later, when Aziraphale questioned him, Abraham could never quite remember what happened next. He could not remember what had happened to Isaac. All he knew was that he had taken one step towards Isaac... and something was suddenly there, visible and corporeal and larger-than-life, wings spread wide like a cobra’s hood, casting a shadow over the bound figure of the boy. It made a sound - like a hiss - and Isaac cried out. Abraham yelled and dropped the knife, only managing to make out a pair of sharp yellow eyes that glowed in the dark and then...

And then the dark angel with the yellow eyes told him to find a ram from one of the flocks roving the mountains and bring it to the pyre and kill it, and off he went, without giving a thought to anything else. He searched for hours and when he finally returned with a bound ram, he picked up his knife and killed it.

Then and only then did he remember what he had come up the mountain to do and what had happened instead.

As soon as Abraham was gone, Crowley turned to Isaac.

He had performed a little demonic miracle to make sure Abraham went straight away without thinking of anything else other than finding a sheep to take Isaac’s place. His mind would be focused entirely on the single task until it was completed, even if it took hours. Crowley, and even Isaac right now, were nothing more than distant shadows at the back of his mind.

Isaac was still lying bound upon the pyre, craning his neck as he gazed up at Crowley, his breath raspy with sobs. He was no longer crying - probably due to shock at Crowley’s sudden, strange appearance. He looked terrified.

“Hey, kid.” Crowley said, coming over to him. He drew his wings in to make himself look less intimidating.

Isaac gave a little gasp but didn’t flinch. He lay, quivering, as Crowley knelt down and held out his hands, hovering them over the boy without touching him.

“I’m going to untie you.” Crowley said, holding still. “Is that alright?”

He waited until Isaac nodded, and slowly lowered his hands. Isaac tensed when they met his skin but lay still as Crowley began working at the knots around his wrists, the black edge of his wing blocking out the sky over his shoulder. As soon as the bindings were loose, Isaac sat up, wiping his face with a sleeve. There were rope burns worn into his skin, and they were marks of how frightened Isaac had been that he had kept struggling despite the pain.

Crowley blew carefully over the marks until they had faded away. “Is that better?” he asked.

The boy nodded, looking down at his now-unmarred skin with wonder. Then he looked up at Crowley, eyes widening a little. Crowley knew he was only just noticing his gold, serpentine eyes.

“Are you an angel?” Isaac whispered, eyes rapt on Crowley‘s.

“I am Crowley.” Crowley said, amused at his unabashed staring. He pronounced his name Crow-ley, like the bird. “And I know your name. Isaac?”

The boy nodded.

Crowley grinned at him. “Pleased to meet you, Isaac.” he said, as he sat down on the pyre, bringing his wings down a little as he got comfortable. Spellbound, Isaac reached out and touched the nearest one; then blushed and withdrew his hand, looking embarrassed.

Crowley didn’t mind. “Do you like my wings?” he asked, giving an affected little preen, and the boy giggled shakily and crept a little closer, his knee brushing the hem of Crowley’s black robes.

“They’re so big.” the boy whispered.

“That they are.” agreed Crowley.

Isaac shifted a little closer, looking behind him to where Abraham had disappeared.

“My father’s very mad at me.” he confessed.

“It’s not your fault.” Crowley said, curving his wing around the child.

Isaac trembled and huddled closer to the demon. “He hates me.” he sniffed into Crowley’s dark robes.

“No. He doesn’t.” Crowley put an arm around him, moving slowly. He could feel Isaac starting to shake. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then what _did_ I do?” the child cried. “I must have done something.” He was beginning to cry. “Please, angel, Crowley, please bring my father back and tell him I’m sorry.”

Crowley rocked him, making little hushing sounds. “It‘s not your fault. It’s alright. Go to sleep now. Go to sleep and when you wake up everything will be alright.”

Already exhausted from the struggle and from terror, Crowley didn’t have to exert much influence before Isaac’s head began to nod. The child gave one last little sob and fell asleep, curled up against Crowley’s black robes.

Crowley shifted so Isaac could rest comfortably on his shoulder, and tucked his wings in more closely. He wondered where Abraham was right now, and then decided he didn’t much care. He felt suddenly angry at the man, for this child who thought he’d done something wrong to make his father to throw him on a pyre.

Crowley had seen kids die before; from disease or natural disasters or at the hands of other humans or at the hands of the Almighty, as in the case of the Flood. But this felt different somehow. This wasn’t just the typical ‘punishing someone because they’ve done something bad.’ Abraham hadn’t done anything wrong - Crowley knew because Downstairs had been trying to corrupt him for years. The man had remained steadfast. Yet he’d been told to kill his child and he had been going to do it.

Aziraphale could have been right and the Almighty might never have intended to actually kill the kid. It could have been a test of Abraham’s faith. She might have stopped him at the last minute. Perhaps by carrying out her orders despite how much they pained him, Abraham _had_ passed. But Crowley had been there. He had watched up until the last possible moment for an angel to appear and tell Abraham to stop. It was only at that last possible moment that he realised none were coming.

What if he hadn’t stepped in? What if he’d never bumped into Aziraphale in that inn and asked him why he was so upset? Would She have let the father kill the kid?

Was it a test? To see if Abraham _would_ kill the kid. To see if a holy man could kill? Or to see if he truly believed that God wouldn’t allow him to kill his own child. He had believed that Crowley was an angel. For obvious reasons, Crowley had not bothered to inform Abraham that he was a demon. Nor had he actually lied and said that he was an angel sent by God. The man more or less came up with his own explanation, that Crowley was an angel sent to stop him and tell him he had passed Her test. Perhaps that was what he wanted to believe.

The whole point of sinning was that you had to tempt humans into it; you could not just miracle them to go out and steal something, or do something bad. Crowley didn’t think even Lucifer had the power to alter someone’s will like that. But that didn’t mean they weren’t open to suggestion, even pious, devout ones like Abraham, especially if they wanted to believe what they were being told.

What if it had been a demon instead of Aziraphale that had told him to kill his child on god’s whim? Would he have done it? If so, thought Crowley, would he have been doing the right thing, or the wrong thing? Murder was bad; all humans knew that. But was it all right in Her name, if She ordered it?

Could a man be good _and_ bad? Could he do bad things with good intentions? Could he innocently murder a child and wholeheartedly believe that it was the right thing to do? Could stopping him from murdering a child be considered a bad thing?

Crowley shook his head to clear it.

He’d had these thoughts before, on the wall of Eden watching Adam and Eve depart across the sands; but they had been shallower, lighter, not as intense as they were now. Perhaps it was because humanity had grown so much bigger than a man and a woman tending to a garden; or perhaps it was because they had been cast out into a harsh world and made it their own, and Crowley had seen so much of the worst and best side of humanity since then, and none of it might have ever existed if he hadn‘t tempted Eve into eating that apple.

And perhaps it was because Crowley had maybe even had these kind of thoughts _before_ the Original Sin, before Adam and Eve and Eden and Aziraphale, in the time before his Fall, the time when he was an angel; the time that he could no longer remember properly.

Such thinking was dangerous for a demon, or an angel. Wasn’t much difference between them, to be honest.

If he was to quote to Crawley all those years ago, the whole business with Abraham and Isaac had ‘went down like a lead balloon,’ in Aziraphale’s opinion.

Not that anyone asked for his opinion, at least not from Upstairs. On earth however it was a different matter.

“It’s all been a bit of an uproar to be honest,” Aziraphale confessed, in between bites of fruit and bread. He finished the very last mouthful off his plate and eagerly signalled a passing server for a refill.

“Guess the message didn’t go down so well with Abraham, after all.” said Crowley, who was sticking to wine.

“Funny you should say that.” Aziraphale said “Because actually Upstairs isn’t entirely sure what happened.”

‘A bit of a uproar’ was putting it mildly, in the angel’s opinion. Heaven just couldn’t work out how the latest assignment from the Almighty had gone so wildly off-kilter. They knew that Abraham had definitely gone up the mountains with Isaac; multiple witnesses could testify to that. And they knew that Abraham had returned from the mountains alone. But they could not confirm whether he had killed Isaac or not; on one hand there was no evidence that the child was dead. But nor was there any trace of him to be found anywhere. It was the body of a ram instead of a boy that lay slain over the pyre.

Gabriel was in a right flap but he didn’t blame Aziraphale; he couldn’t, because Aziraphale had only been given the task of delivering the message to Abraham. As there was no doubt that he had delivered it very clearly and correctly, Gabriel couldn’t fault him for doing exactly as he had been told. Instead he had sent Aziraphale to try and work out what had gone wrong. That had been two weeks ago, and Heaven was still no closer to working out what had really happened.

Meanwhile, Crowley had found that his interference with the whole affair had rather conveniently suited his superiors. They were pleased that he had managed to muck up a message straight from God, whilst also tricking a holy man into defying Her. The end result was that Downstairs were in a much better mood with him than usual, which granted him the freedom to do whatever he wanted, for a few years at least.

“Do you know what Abraham said?” said Aziraphale “He said he believes it was an angel that took his son away to heaven.”

“Really?” said Crowley, putting on his best no-I-don’t-know-anything-this-is-the-first-time-I’m-hearing-about-any-of-this face. He helped himself to a generous chug of wine.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale “They told him that a ram would do for the sacrifice instead and took his son away into the night. Funny thing is that he can’t remember what they look like. He says that every time he tries, the memory slips away. And there is no record of any angel other than myself on earth.” He took a sip from his own cup. “It’s rather a bit of a mystery.” said the angel mildly.

He didn't seem too bothered himself, not half as fussed as he had described Gabriel and the rest Upstairs, who were rarely overly concerned about what happened on earth. In fact, Crowley thought as he watched Aziraphale drink, he seemed much more relaxed than he had been a fortnight ago.

"Anyway, Upstairs is sending them a compensation next year." Aziraphale said "Abraham and his wife will soon have another child.”

"You can't compensate a _kid_, angel." said Crowley "Isn’t Abraham worried sick about his son going missing?”

Aziraphale shook his head as a server replaced his empty plate with a full one. “He has faith that his son is in God’s hands."

Personally, Crowley thought Abraham held a bit of a hero-crush for the Almighty. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing but it was a bit irritating. Especially when you were a demon and not an angel. And he thought that Abraham probably would not have been anywhere near as calm if he had known that his son’s life had (literally) been in a demon’s hands, rather than the Almighty’s. Downstairs had actually sent him a commendation for his work, guessing correctly that Crowley was responsible for Isaac‘s disappearance. Incorrectly they assumed that this was because Crowley had done the deed himself and disposed of the child’s body in a way that left nothing behind. There had followed a lot of speculation among the ranks about how Crowley had achieved this, the most popular theory being that Crowley had eaten him.

Crowley took care not to encourage such activities. If eating children became the latest trend amongst demons, he wouldn't have been able to sit back and do nothing. He had been very careful to avoid specifying what exactly he had done with Isaac. His superiors would not have been so happy if they had known that, rather than gobbling him up, Crowley had taken Isaac away to the home of a man and woman who were unable to have their own children and had filled the void with other people’s. Any memory they had of the strange, dark-robed traveller who had delivered the latest addition to their brood in his arms had slipped from their minds as soon as he was no longer in sight. So far as Crowley could tell, they were raising him kindly and lovingly. Isaac was settling in well, though he was no longer called that. He had no memory of his real name or the life he used to have. But if Abraham was searching for Isaac and they heard about the dark angel who'd taken him away, it might just be enough to jog memories.

“So he’s not even searching for him or anything?” pressed Crowley.

"No, no." said Aziraphale. And then before he could stop himself, he added, "Not anymore," and then turned slightly pink and hastily shovelled more food into his mouth.

Crowley didn't hear him. He was remembering Abraham's slipping composure as he bound that block of wood to his son's back. Whatever he had been going to do, he had obviously loved his son, his child, very much.

Sometimes, when he saw one of Isaac's foster parents address him by his new name, Crowley wondered if he’d done the right thing.

“Crawley?” Aziraphale’s voice drew him back to the present. The angel had swallowed his mouthful, an expression of faint concern on his face. Crowley realised he’d slipped off into a world of his own and lost track of the conversation.

“Sorry, angel?” Crowley resisted the urge to fidget. Aziraphale was watching him carefully.

“What’s on your mind, might I ask?” the angel asked.

“Do you believe the kid’s alive, angel?” Crowley asked him.

Immediately he wanted to kick himself. What on earth was he thinking? Saying something like that out of the blue, with no subtlety whatsoever, was practically asking for suspicion. It was like looking down at a dead body, shaking your head and tutting, whilst saying loudly, "Well, now who could have done this, angel? Certainly not me, that’s for sure."

Something tugged at the sleeve of Crowley’s robe. Aziraphale had slid one hand across the table towards him and was clasping the end of Crowley’s dark sleeve between his fingers.

“Of course I do.” said the angel in a voice completely lacking in doubt or caution.

Crowley stared at him, pupils blown wide. Aziraphale smiled back at him.

The moment lasted for as long as it took for both parties to get flustered; for Aziraphale to look down at the hand holding Crowley’s robes as if it had acted out of a will of its own and quickly withdraw, nearly upending his plate in the process; and for Crowley to become aware that he was gazing at Aziraphale with a pathetically wide-eyed and adulant expression and quickly hide it behind a mask of disinterestedness. Funnily enough, the demon found he wasn’t so worried anymore.

They didn’t talk about it again; not openly, in the same way they didn’t talk about the many other children before or since, who’d been sentenced to die and had been spared.

But they both remembered. And truly neither of them regretted it.

**Author's Note:**

> The phrase Crowley uses ‘sowing poisoned oats’ does NOT mean the same thing as ‘sowing wild oats’ btw.
> 
> Sorry if the characters seem a bit OCC; didn’t realise until I looked it up that the Binding of Isaac takes place before Christ, i.e., before Aziraphale invites Crowley to lunch i.e., before they become really REALLY close friends.


End file.
